PDM gets onboard for L'oreal Paris and Maybelline

L'oreal India appoints PDM India as the retainer agency for L'oreal Paris and Maybelline for a year

L'oreal India has appointed Percept D'Mark (PDM) as the activation agency for two of its brands, L'oreal Paris and Maybelline. The contract has been signed for a year. To start with, PDM will look after the two brands' existing weekly activation programmes, executed in retail stores and malls.

While PDM has been executing some of the earlier activation programmes in North India, the contract will see the agency taking over the responsibility across India. This is also the first time that L'oreal has appointed an activation agency on a retainer basis; till now, the brand worked with different agencies for different regions.

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Sanjay Shukla, national head, promotions, PDM India, says, "We have always believed in working with our clients on a long-term basis. And instead of running after businesses every day, we plan to stick to the band of a few clients, as it is beneficial for both the parties involved. It is to increase this band that we suggested that L'oreal try the retainership model with us, and they agreed."

L'oreal had called a pitch inviting a few activation agencies for executing the ongoing weekly activations for the two brands - Makeover activity for Maybelline and Beauty Studio for L'oreal Paris. PDM won the pitch, and the retainership model was worked out subsequently. Both the companies, however, declined to name the other agencies who pitched for the business.

Anish Agarwal, assistant product development manager, L'oreal says, "Though even regularly, any activation agency employed by us is for a minimum of nine months to a year, but this deal works better for us in a financial sense. We wanted an agency that will help us smooth out the operational difficulties of our activation programmes."

While Agarwal says that PDM has been signed on specifically to execute the ongoing weekly activations across retail stores and malls on a pan-India basis, the company will also look at other initiatives or ideas that the agency might come up with during the year.